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Nobody has updated/confirmed attendance to me directly, except for listeners. I'll update the first post with confirmed attendees.

Jeff has mentioned bringing multiple products in. On the JTR Speaker forum he confirmed he'll be bringing the sealed caps the meet. I've got my Cap Pro ported pair - so there will be at least those two representing JTR.http://jtrspeakers.websitetoolbox.co...400?trail=15#7

Sounds like we'll have some Chase Home Theater equipment brought in by owners - at least a couple of sealed 18.1's or 18.2's depending on who shows. Maybe more types -- unsure.

I haven't had the Elemental Designs options yet confirmed by Alex - but we'd be glad to have them here too.

I haven't had the submersives' attendance confirmed by counsil. I sure hope we have a couple of them entered. Mark's chimed in the thread a couple times, but no confirmation on the submersive's attendance yet.

I've had a hodge podge of individual subs offered as singles for demos - but I still want to use doubles for every single thing we listen to - to keep the playing field level and the listening area response smooth. I also want to limit this audition to the top tier subs if you will - so that we don't run out of time. I took Friday off and can also have Sunday free, and Monday is a holiday --- so I've got a lot of time. If we want to audition more subs we can if we want to make it a two day we can -- but I think our Saturday will be full with six blind sub auditions at most.
My room really likes doubles. Luke and I got the Caps to downright impressive smooth FR with the omnimic on his last visit. We found the natural sweet spot in the room and figured out the optimal facing direction. We can likely use this spot and this direction for all subs at the meet.

I would also recommend we have a couple subs hooked up before we ever start the blind judging to listen to the demo material on - NOT included in the blind audition rankings - but simply to get a feel for what to expect sound wise in my room before we ever begin the blind auditions. At the Husker Omaha meet we just listened to the first subs blind - no knowing what the room sounded like at all. For this task I'd like a couple of high quality, well known subs. A pair of SVS PB12+ or a pair of HSU VTF-15H (luke?) for instance. The subs will give the first blind audition more relevance and accuracy in the voting. Otherwise no one knows how to vote the first blind subs' audition because they don't know how the room sounds or what they should expect.

"The HSU ULS simply isn't in the same category as these other offerings. It has relatively weak output by comparison. I wouldn't consider it against an OS, a Captivator, or a Submersive, even at the holiday special pricing."

Thanks nube. So, just to be clear, because at this price point I'm looking at least quadrive vs. pairs, still need to mark them off?
Thanks,
Leland

P.S. Archaea, pm me if there is some way I can contribute.
Thanks for putting this together. I do have a Onkyo
12" HTIB sub avail. Lol

I think if you are going to do a blind testing of all the top subs you need to include a pair of OS's along with the caps, Chase, Submersives, and Elemental Design subs. Even though they are big it would be nice to see how they compare to the other top subs.

I absolutely LOVE snow, and love driving in it, oddly enough. I wish we had had more than the two inches here in New Mexico that fell this morning. It was melted by noon.

It's shocking how terribly people drive in general, and it's amplified so much more in any type of inclement weather. The neat thing is that it's actually easier to drive in heavy snow than in heavy rain, if you know what you're doing and have a front wheel drive car. I am always the guy in the fast lane doing 45MPH in snow, because that's the best way to avoid the crazies.

Tailgating causes more accidents on the freeway than anything else, according to state HWY patrol stats. Back when I lived in KC (Lenexa, OP, and west KCK out by the racetrack), I had some CRAZY experiences driving I-35 from downtown KCK to OP in ice and snow. Several times in the seven years I lived there I saw slow lane tailgaters swerve after slamming on their brakes, do donuts in the snow, and end up causing pileups in my rear view mirror.

Living in the midwest, I love having all the seasons. Another thing that is fun is when florida and texas get ice or even snow and the news show all the drivers jamming the breaks and swerving and spinning out instead of just keeping speed steady.

Growing up in a rural area really makes you a good weather driver having seen ice, snow, gravel, mud, etc. City folk are funny drivers; guess that is me now.

I absolutely LOVE snow, and love driving in it, oddly enough. I wish we had had more than the two inches here in New Mexico that fell this morning. It was melted by noon.

It's shocking how terribly people drive in general, and it's amplified so much more in any type of inclement weather. The neat thing is that it's actually easier to drive in heavy snow than in heavy rain, if you know what you're doing and have a front wheel drive car. I am always the guy in the fast lane doing 45MPH in snow, because that's the best way to avoid the crazies.

Tailgating causes more accidents on the freeway than anything else, according to state HWY patrol stats. Back when I lived in KC (Lenexa, OP, and west KCK out by the racetrack), I had some CRAZY experiences driving I-35 from downtown KCK to OP in ice and snow. Several times in the seven years I lived there I saw slow lane tailgaters swerve after slamming on their brakes, do donuts in the snow, and end up causing pileups in my rear view mirror.

Ha, small world Nube.

I live in Shawnee and teach in Liberty and take I-35 all the way up, been doing it for 14 years now. Last year we had a very heavy snow right as school was getting out and it took over 3 hours to get home! There was a story on the news about a guy that had to drive from Gardner (south of Olathe) to his home in Excelsior Springs (north of Liberty) and it took him 9 hours that day. I guess most of the cars were running out of gas.

By the way - - - - anything rivaling these caps -- I've still yet to see. :P My daughter likes to dance - and by that she means running around with the music cranked. I kept inching it up on a particularly fun song and got to reference on some dubstep. My wife came down and scolded me so I turned it down to -20 again. My 2.5 year old daughter immediately started yelling

Haha, I can relate. The exact same thing happens over here with my 3 and 6 year old girls except for the fact that they are running around and dancing to metal. They really don't care what type of music it is though, I think it's the fact that I'm usually 10db hot with music and you can really feel the Cap. They love it.

By the way - - - - anything rivaling these caps -- I've still yet to see. :P My daughter likes to dance - and by that she means running around with the music cranked. I kept inching it up on a particularly fun song and got to reference on some dubstep. My wife came down and scolded me so I turned it down to -20 again. My 2.5 year old daughter immediately started yelling

"Turn it up - Turn it up Daddy! - Turn it up! Turn it up Daddy!"

I snuck the volume back up to -15.

Now she's asking me to "come sing right now!"

Captivators and 2.5 year old daughers are both epic fun!

It is really a shame that your kid isn't experiencing the tighter more articulate sounds that sealed subs make. You shouldn't cheat her; life is too short.

I'm really am going to enjoy ribbing you -- after you decide you like the ported sound better at the January meet.

I do note you put a little question mark by your title now

Anti-Ported?

getting nervous?

I have heard dual Cap1000's and do not prefer ported but they are the only ported subs I have heard that sound as good as sealed. I like the below 15hz stuff so there is only one choice unless I build really big ported subs.

I don't know what the demo lineup is going to be, but I seriously hope it includes a bunch of clips with sub 10hz content, such as TIH cop car smash scene, the dragon's death in HTTYD, BHD's F*cking Irene scene, Chapter 5 in Cloverfield, Master and Commander's opening salvo, etc.

I say this because I doubt there's another way, short of actual measurements with REW, of differentiating the claims made by some of the MFGs of some of these subs and their real capabilities. If a sub can't legitimately do high output <10hz without enormous PVG, it should be obvious in blind testing on these types of scenes. Clearly this skews the audition towards sealed designs (or mammoth horns like the OS), but I think nothing short of that will allow clear differentiation between the entries.

I don't know what the demo lineup is going to be, but I seriously hope it includes a bunch of clips with sub 10hz content, such as TIH cop car smash scene, the dragon's death in HTTYD, BHD's F*cking Irene scene, Chapter 5 in Cloverfield, Master and Commander's opening salvo, etc.

I say this because I doubt there's another way, short of actual measurements with REW, of differentiating the claims made by some of the MFGs of some of these subs and their real capabilities. If a sub can't legitimately do high output <10hz without enormous PVG, it should be obvious in blind testing on these types of scenes. Clearly this skews the audition towards sealed designs (or mammoth horns like the OS), but I think nothing short of that will allow clear differentiation between the entries.

I don't know what the demo lineup is going to be, but I seriously hope it includes a bunch of clips with sub 10hz content, such as TIH cop car smash scene, the dragon's death in HTTYD, BHD's F*cking Irene scene, Chapter 5 in Cloverfield, Master and Commander's opening salvo, etc.
...
I'm sure Archea will have it sorted, all in good time.

And here lies the difficulty. With the exception of WOTW, which somebody else mentioned you just listed off nearly the complete list of movies with < 10-15hz content. Hundreds of thousands of movies exist and we have only about a dozen which produce quality ultra low frequencies -- these have become the right of passage for demo auditions. It's an interesting conundrum. Which type of demo material better represents common use? That said - I do fully intend to include clips with the ULF as that is always hot topic. I too do want to hear what everybody keeps praising (as so far I don't think I've experienced it) - as well as see if that praise is still present in blind auditions when the auditioners don't know if they should be actually hearing it at that moment or not? - - - I also want to have clips that just sound fun for the sake of sounding fun. The clip list is not finalized yet, and I'm definately looking for input, but who doesn't like the footsteps from Jurrassic Park's T-rex? or the minigun and grenade bursts from the Terminator 2 Cybertech Office minigun scene? If a blind test is to be preformed - I think it needs to be a quality mix of all kinds of bass scenes. Also we've decided the clips should be relatively fewer than past meets and perhaps have more variance. Just listening to explosions rumble over and over through various scenes in many different movies may not be the best material to audition a subs prowness through the entire subwoofer frequency range. The Omaha meet had too many explosion rumble scenes - but it also had some awesome full spectrum bass scenes like the Bumblebee highway scene from Terminiator 3 with descending bass notes, and the Battlefield LA scene which had alien ship popping thruster sounds which were excellent. I'll likely take a couple of the favorites from each recent meet, combine them and then add a couple new clips for good measure.

- lets find a good mix of material! One or two representatives of the same kind of sound from different demo material is probably sufficient.

For those actually bringing their subs to audition, like we did in the KC meet, I'd like you to suggest one track of each music and movie to audition the subs with. Other attendees can make suggestions as well, and we'll review them all.

And here lies the difficulty. With the exception of WOTW, which somebody else mentioned you just listed off nearly the complete list of movies with < 10-15hz content. Hundreds of thousands of movies exist and we have only about a dozen which produce quality ultra low frequencies -- these have become the right of passage for demo auditions. It's an interesting conundrum. Which type of demo material better represents common use? That said - I do fully intend to include clips with the ULF as that is always hot topic. I too do want to hear what everybody keeps praising (as so far I don't think I've experienced it) - as well as see if that praise is still present in blind auditions when the auditioners don't know if they should be actually hearing it at that moment or not? - - - I also want to have clips that just sound fun for the sake of sounding fun. The clip list is not finalized yet, and I'm definately looking for input, but who doesn't like the footsteps from Jurrassic Park's T-rex? or the minigun and grenade bursts from the Terminator 2 Cybertech Office minigun scene? If a blind test is to be preformed - I think it needs to be a quality mix of all kinds of bass scenes. Also we've decided the clips should be relatively fewer than past meets and perhaps have more variance. Just listening to explosions rumble over and over through various scenes in many different movies may not be the best material to audition a subs prowness through the entire subwoofer frequency range. The Omaha meet had too many explosion rumble scenes - but it also had some awesome full spectrum bass scenes like the Bumblebee highway scene from Terminiator 3 with descending bass notes, and the Battlefield LA scene which had alien ship popping thruster sounds which were excellent. I'll likely take a couple of the favorites from each recent meet, combine them and then add a couple new clips for good measure.

- lets find a good mix of material! One or two representatives of the same kind of sound from different demo material is probably sufficient.

For those actually bringing their subs to audition, like we did in the KC meet, I'd like you to suggest one track of each music and movie to audition the subs with. Other attendees can make suggestions as well, and we'll review them all.

Jurassic Park 3 has the best bass of the series as impact is concerned.

Check this out. --- and no smoothing. My room CAN be tamed!. The 100hz to 20hz dropping sound wave has never sounded smoother in my room. This is not Audyssey - just the Inuke DSP with 6 bands of Parametic EQ applied and a HPF set at 20hz. I can't quite get rid of the little bump at 20hz, if I put a PEQ band at 20hz above about -1dB it lowers the FR below flat there, and if I take off the HPF at 20hz I get a big bump around 20hz (subs tuning).

Here is the same graph with 1/6 octave smoothing - which is the default for the omnimic.

Here are my Parametric EQ and HPF settings on the INuke.

I'm excited about this because this new placement with the subs facing out towards the side walls that Luke and I discovered with the omnimic last week really allows for no major nulls or peaks compared to the previous manner of facing forward. I miss my ported air blowing on my face, but for the sake of our blind audition you wouldn't want that I suppose. So my room seems to be defeated with this particular sub placement and some EQ! It'll also be easy to hide the subs in this location behind a blind. If curious -look at the pictures of my room in my signature and then just imagine the subs turned perpendicular to your view - left sub facing the left wall about 2 inches from the front wall, and right sub facing the right wall.

For comparison here are some screenies from the Husker Omaha meet of the Caps and Submersive with 1/48th smoothing on. My graph above has no smoothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by desertdome

Here are the measurements for the dual JTR Speakers Captivator Pros. Total time to EQ = 3.75 minutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by desertdome

Here are the measurements for the Seaton Submersive HP. Total time to EQ = 4.5 minutes.

Scuba Steve also advised me on using TSMuxor and DVD-FAB to create my own demo clips. I've been playing around with that tonight and managed to successfully create a clip of Titan AE's Icefield on the Home Theatre PC. I bought a Blu-Ray drive, so I can now create any clip I want from any DVD or Blu-Ray for the meet.

The one hold up I'm still researching is that the current generation of sound cards - even nice ones like Creative Lab Fatality or Audigy cards don't support the new Dolby Digital True HD or DTS Master Audio. They only support the lossey standard version of Dolby Digital and DTS. This isn't really a problem for DVD cuts because they don't have the new standards, but for BluRay cuts - if you want lossless we'll just have to use the ScubaSteve Demo disks probably. I've got more to learn here and may not be entirely accurate in this understanding - but feel free to let me know if I'm missing something!

I don't know what the demo lineup is going to be, but I seriously hope it includes a bunch of clips with sub 10hz content, such as TIH cop car smash scene, the dragon's death in HTTYD, BHD's F*cking Irene scene, Chapter 5 in Cloverfield, Master and Commander's opening salvo, etc.

I say this because I doubt there's another way, short of actual measurements with REW, of differentiating the claims made by some of the MFGs of some of these subs and their real capabilities. If a sub can't legitimately do high output <10hz without enormous PVG, it should be obvious in blind testing on these types of scenes. Clearly this skews the audition towards sealed designs (or mammoth horns like the OS), but I think nothing short of that will allow clear differentiation between the entries.

I'm sure Archea will have it sorted, all in good time.

Actually I don't think it skews (in an unfair sense, anyway) the comparo at all. If one sub can accomplish the feat while another cannot, more power to it. Heck, maybe we'll finally get an answer to the usefuleness of sub 20/15hz content once and for all, but I doubt it.

I feel identically in regards overall max output, as well. Find out the limits of each and let the sub-people decide for themselves if the $, size/form-factor, and sound trade-offs (if any) are worth it.

Although that aspect will likely be clouded if indeed there will be pairs of every sub there...ditto for the ULF response.

The time and space that need to be allotted for pairs of 8-10 of these subs has to be monumental, btw. Never mind the fact that I doubt even a small % of users have either the budget ($4,500-$7500) or space/WAF to run duals of any of the JTR or Seaton products.

James

Actual phone call (see pic to left):

Tech (responding to laughter): "I'm sorry sir, did I miss something?"

Me: "Yeah, a case of Diet Mountain Dew walking across my living room."